Cape Korean War veterans remember, reflect on peace prospects

Bill Porter

Sunday

May 27, 2018 at 5:21 PMMay 28, 2018 at 6:25 AM

CHATHAM — Spread in front of P. Stanley Cobane on his kitchen table, along with photos of him with Marine buddies in Korea, his military identification cards and a picture of Cobane with his wife, Ann, standing next to a 1937 Ford Coupe long before they were married, is a book titled, “This Is War! A Photo-Narrative of the Korean War,” by “Life” magazine photographer David Douglas Duncan.

He opens the book and turns the pages. There are images of friends, some of whom were killed in action, and familiar places.

“I remember going across this cotton field here,” he said. “First cotton I’d ever seen in my life.”

Also on the table is a Purple Heart in a case alongside a Good Conduct Medal, and nearby, a small glass jar containing a metal fragment.

“I was a quadriplegic,” he said. “All four limbs paralyzed. I made a mistake and stuck my head up at the wrong time. It’s something you don’t ever want to do. Don’t stick your head up at the wrong time.”

As the country remembers fallen members of its military this Memorial Day and considers the possibility of a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, Cobane and other Cape Cod veterans who served there remember their lost comrades and consider how their sacrifice may have paved the way for what's to come.

On Sept. 26, 1950, on Hill 296 outside of Seoul, a piece of shrapnel from a mortar round tore through the left side of Cobane's neck and broke apart. One piece came to rest under his right ear and formed a lump under the skin. That fragment was removed. Seven other pieces remain lodged in his neck.

“We were being attacked on this hill, and it was my job to give the order to open fire,” Cobane said. “I was waiting for them to get closer, and I stuck my head up to see how close they were, and I got hit.”

He didn’t know it was coming.

“You hear a lot of them,” he said, “but you never hear the one that gets you.”

The Korean War, also known as the Forgotten War, is not forgotten by U.S veterans who fought it. Their numbers dwindling as time takes its toll, they don’t have to look back to recall the death, destruction and suffering that ravaged the peninsula in the early 1950s and killed at least 2.5 million people. They carry it with them.

“In my opinion, there’s not enough credit given to the fellows who were killed who saved that country,” Cobane said, referring to the successful struggle to repel the invasion of South Korea. “Everybody looks at what happens today, and they don’t have much thought about what happened yesterday.”

Veterans are tuned in today as well. The Kansas-based Korean War Veterans Association, whose members include 43 vets in a Cape and Islands chapter, on May 1 sent a letter to President Donald Trump highlighting objectives, including denuclearization and unification of the peninsula and resumption of joint recovery of remains of U.S. service members still missing. Recovery operations have been suspended in North Korea since May 2005.

“There are still some that haven’t come back,” said Cobane, 87, a native of Lake Placid, New York, who moved to Chatham in 2004.

He was a Marine from 1948 to 1952 and was in Korea from Aug. 3, 1950, until the day he suffered his wound, which he said doctors have described as a shock to his spinal cord.

He eventually regained the use of his arms and legs after a long hard struggle, but it was nearly a year after being wounded before he could walk again. The injury has left him with numbness in his hands.

“I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me,” said the affable big man, who worked for Ozark Airlines and started an air freight business, now owned and run by family members. “I’ve had a good life. But I don’t have much feeling in my hands.”

Cobane, who attained the rank of sergeant, was a member of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, among the first Marines sent to Korea in August 1950.

He fought in the Battle of Pusan Perimeter and was part of the first wave to land at Inchon, at Green Beach on the island of Wolmi-do, with How Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

“We had that whole island secured in two hours,” he said. “We had tanks on shore in the third wave. There was nobody killed. We had 17 wounded.”

‘An honor to help them’

Of the nearly 1.8 million members of the U.S. military who served in the Korean War, 33,739 died of battle wounds and another 2,835 of other causes; 103,284 suffered non-mortal wounds, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Among the wounded was David White, 91, a retired lawyer from Eastham, and an Army veteran of World War II and the Korean War.

White graduated from North High School in Worcester in 1944 and was drafted after beginning his freshman year at Harvard.

He finished basic training in January 1945 and was assigned to the 71st Infantry Division as a rifleman. He served in Germany and remained there until returning home in August 1946.

He graduated from Harvard and in March 1951 was recalled for active duty in Korea as a rifle platoon leader and a first lieutenant with the 40th Infantry Division.

The 40th was sent to Heartbreak Ridge to relieve the 25th, which had taken a pounding from North Korean attacks.

“The North Koreans up there in Heartbreak were sending in a lot of artillery and mortar,” White said. “A lot of guys got wounded and especially sergeants. We had nighttime patrols every third night. I ended up leading a lot of them myself because I didn’t have any sergeants to lead them.”

One night in early November 1952, White led an ambush patrol deep into enemy territory.

He spotted a North Korean soldier, killed him and sprayed the ridge with automatic fire, eliminating the enemy’s element of surprise. He sustained shrapnel wounds to his legs and feet — some of the fragments are still there — but continued to direct the mortar and gunfire attack, refusing to be taken to an aid station until all of his wounded soldiers had been evacuated. His leadership and bravery is credited with saving many lives.

In addition to the Purple Heart, White received The Silver Star for gallantry in action, the third-highest combat decoration that can be awarded to a member of the military. He also received the Combat Infantry Badge.

White, who remained in the active Army Reserve until 1986 and retired as a lieutenant colonel, said the U.S. paved the way for much to be accomplished in South Korea.

“The fact that the U.S. provided military protection gave them a chance to build, and they’re very industrious people,” he said. “It was an honor to be over there and to help them.”

‘If you hadn’t been there …’

Larry Cole, 84, of South Harwich, was an Army infantryman with the 5th Regimental Combat Team, a “fireplug” outfit that would go where and when needed. He was a machine gunner and did some fighting.

“Nothing significant,” he said.

Cole, who was on the front lines when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, served in Korea from March 1953 until May 1954, stayed in the reserves and retired at the rank of master sergeant.

He earned a doctorate in economics at Purdue University and was a professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire and later a practicing economist in the private sector.

Cole was born in Vermont, grew up in Keene, New Hampshire, and moved to the Cape when he retired in 1997.

He is secretary of Cape and Islands Chapter 1 of the Korean War Veterans Association, of which Cobane and White also are members.

The local chapter is planning a commemorative event July 27 at its monument at Veterans Memorial Park in Hyannis to mark the 65th anniversary of the armistice signing that established a cease-fire. The plan is for a simple ceremony, with Kim Yonghyon, South Korea’s consul general in Boston, as the main speaker.

The chapter’s membership has dwindled from a couple hundred veterans to 43.

“Many of them, they don’t drive anymore, they’re in poor health,” Cole said. “So we’re lucky if we get eight or 10 to attend a meeting, and we’ve changed from monthly to quarterly.”

Cole is doubtful about the prospects for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

“I can’t imagine what we could offer the North Koreans that would cause them to give up their nuclear weapons,” he said.

On reunification, he adds: “The North would like to reunify by taking over the whole country. The Chinese would not stand for a reunification under the South while they still regard the South as essentially a puppet of the U.S. … China is going to have a key role in whatever happens.”

But, like Cobane and White, Cole sees much accomplished by U.S. service members who fought in the war.

“South Korea is now an independent democratic society, it has become one of the Asian Tigers in terms of its economy, and to me that is more than persuasive that we did the right thing by intervening,” he said.

Cole ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Virginia, in 2012. He was wearing a tank top with “Army” on the front, and on the back: “F Company, 5th RCT, Korea 53-54.”

A young Korean-American runner passed him, and when he saw the shirt, he said to Cole, “If you hadn’t been there, I might not be here.”

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